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What Comes After the Windows Era?
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| For many years, people in the free software world have dreamed of a day when
| GNU/Linux would replace Windows on the desktop. Although the market share of
| GNU/Linux there is finally lifting – figures range from 3% to 11%, according
| to the sector – it seems unlikely that GNU/Linux will ever take over the
| desktop from Windows. But that does not mean that Windows will maintain its
| dominance there, simply that the future is more complex than the monoculture
| we have seen and suffered for nearly two decades.
|
| [...]
|
| I would like to suggest that the free software world should start looking at
| things from a different perspective – not how many percentage points
| GNU/Linux gains on the desktop, but how many Microsoft is losing to *all* of
| the alternatives to Windows. Free software has nothing to fear from a
| heterogeneous environment – indeed, mixing technologies almost forces open
| standards upon manufacturers if they want to provide full interoperability.
|
| Moreover, as many have pointed out, the low number of GNU/Linux viruses is
| only in part down to the latter's superior design. If GNU/Linux became as
| dominant on the desktop as Windows, there would be a greater incentive to
| break that security – and a bigger knock-on effect when it was broken. Far
| better to promote heterogeneity, which is good for the software ecosystem,
| and thus good for *all* users.
|
| Against this background, then, we should be celebrating what looks
| increasingly like the end of the Windows era on the desktop, but not in the
| naïve, and slightly selfish hope that it will usher in one purely based on
| GNU/Linux. One of the best proofs that free software is superior in all
| senses to proprietary software is having the maturity to recognise that the
| world of personal computing today is far more complicated, and far richer,
| than Bill Gates's original, monopolistic vision of “a (Microsoft-based)
| computer on every desktop”.
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http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/what-comes-after-windows-era
Recent:
Microsoft loses 90 Billion Dollars
http://slated.org/microsoft_loses_90_billion_dollars
Ex-Microsoft Manager Gets 22 Months for Fraud
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| Carolyn Gudmundson, 46, formerly a program manager at Microsoft's MSN
| division, pleaded guilty in January to charges that she used her position
| within the company to run a number of scams between 2000 and 2004.
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http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/148642/exmicrosoft_manager_gets_22_months_for_fraud.html
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